American officials have cautioned that insurgents will escalate attacks in a bid to scuttle Jan. 30 elections. After a roadside bomb struck a Bradley on Thursday and killed seven soldiers, the Defense Department warned that militants were increasing the size and power of their bombs.
The attack yesterday on a Bradley in southwest Baghdad followed the same pattern.
''It's fair to say that they are afraid of the elections, they are afraid of what the outcome will be, and they want to do everything they can to derail that process because that's just one more step toward their demise," US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton said. ''This is probably an indication of their increase in effort and investment to derail the vote."
The attack was one of several acts of major violence yesterday.
A suicide attacker detonated a bomb in a fake police car at a police station courtyard in Baghdad, killing at least four officers and wounding 10 during a shift change, police and witnesses said.
A roadside bombing killed three Iraqi National Guard soldiers and wounded six during a joint patrol with US troops in the restive northern city of Mosul, said Major Andre Hance, a US military spokesman. He said there were no American casualties.
In a suggestion that the insurgents were looking for new ways to intimidate voters, a militant group posted threats in at least two towns warning it would deploy ''highly trained" snipers to target voters around Iraq during the elections.
The statement, signed by the previously unknown Secret Republican Army, said 32 snipers will stalk voters outside polling in Wasit, a largely Shi'ite province south of Baghdad that includes Kut, Numaniyah, and Suwaiyra. It did not say how many would be sent elsewhere.
Sheik Fassal Raikan al-Gout, the governor of Anbar province, said he was aware of the circulated posters but dismissed their importance. ''We do not care about such statements," he said. ''We will continue to do our best and what we see fit to maintain security."
